more ocean trash

It seems quite a few people misunderstood my posting about ocean trash. My concern is not so much with the trash being in the ocean, as opposed to say it being in "its proper place," whatever that might be -the landfill?- My qualm is with the trash itself. Its very existence.

I do agree that it is nicer to live in a community where people put their trash in trash cans and where they don't leave stuff lying around. However that is not my worry with ocean trash. To be quite blunt, the trash in the ocean does not bother me directly. I never see it and I never run across it.

What is worrisome is that we produce so much trash, not where we put it. That is what makes our lifestyle unsustainable. And that is what we need to change if we are going to survive on this planet.

What is deeply worrying is the fact that we produce and throw away perfectly good stuff at alarming rates. The fact that we seem to need a new car every three to five years -and why you could ask? What makes those new cars any better than the car we have? And why do we need a 400 hp car to drive 55 mph -and 25 mph during rush hour?

It is these old cars and other stuff that end up in the oceans.

Like the computer that we need to replace every two years, or a new cellphone that we can'd do without, or a new TV, or new kitchen appliances, or what have you. The fact that our society makes it so that we are forced to throw out good items and buy the latest gadget. In the case of computing that is a direct statement, the older machines simply won't work with today's software, even though today's software is only very marginally more capable (and often less useful) than yesterday's version. In other cases, the "must have" is more indirect and we are told we "need" to buy the latest gadget lest we be seen as failures by our peers.

Those "must have" gadgets have become so unappealing and so uninspiring because the designers can't possibly think any more significant changes to make. Yet Madison Avenue knows how to package them so we feel we can't possibly do without them. Call it peer pressure.

Designers vary the color, or the "style" or some other unimportant but very visible attribute on a regular basis. The technical term for these unnecessary changes is fashion. Fashion has high visibility so your neighbors will know if you refuse to play along. They will know that you are "falling behind," and are no longer "in their league." They will know when to shun you and treat you like the outcast that you are.